Happy *early* Birthday, Carson!

Carson's 4th Birthday isn't until late next week but since my Mom will be out of town then, we went ahead and had a mini-celebration a bit early, complete with a mini-cake. Carson loved it - especially the singing. He's a bit of a ham (and I have NO idea where he gets it!)

And just because he looks so tough and grown up (looks can be deceiving) I had to share this photo too. Soccer also started this week and my little man thinks he's big stuff! Love this photo - even though he was *supposed* to be practicing and instead was *breaking!*

Happy *early* birthday, little man. May all your birthday wishes come true! Love you tons!
P.S. I was directed to these super-cute doodle frames at Heather Ann Designs by the awesome Kelly P. LOVE them!

Best of BasicGrey on QVC

Hi All! I just wanted to give a little PSA that BasicGrey will be featured on QVC's Craft Fair - a 24-hour Mega Day of Scrapbooking products on Tuesday, August 14th! We will have 3 segments airing at 1 am Eastern, Noon Eastern and 5 pm Eastern.
During these times we'll be featuring our awesome 15"x15" Magnetic Mat, our Blush Lunchpail Kit (1 Lunchpail, Blush Paper pack and fibers) along with a BEST of BasicGrey that will include our 48 top selling papers from past lines. I have to admit it's been really fun revisiting some of these amazing lines and playing with them again. I think you'll love them too especially if you missed out the first time around! We hope to see you there! (And here's just a bit of what you might see...)

Pure Summertime

Today, on an impulse, we decided to stop by the Louisville Waterfront on our way home from a day of movies and ice cream with Jammie and D.D. Hoyte and I had wanted to see it for forever as the city has been giving it a vast renovation for several years.

I was in awe. It was absolutely spectacular. The grass was so green. There was an awesome playground, a skate park, and the best of all - these water jets. Nothing says summertime like streaking through some water sprinklers in the middle of downtown in your shorts and britches! SO fun!

The 1st Day of School

Well Monday was the first day of school and immediately we had to get into the (EARLY)swing of things. School administrators decided to bump up the start time up for class by almost half an hour so it was a big shock from our summer schedule! But the boys were raring to go - my big 2nd grader and my almost-as-big kindergartener. We all drove in that morning, completely loaded down with the mandatory school supplies, and got them settled.I knew Ethan would be fine, he already knew 1/2 his class. I was a little worried about my Turner, but I shouldn't have been! He immediately spots a friend from preschool, Maddie, and was so excited. He settled right down into his seat and started coloring like the teacher had asked. It made it much easier to leave him that morning.

All in all it was a great day for them and they made it home safely to me! :) But with the horrid heat and lonnnnng day, were quite cranky the rest of the evening. It's getting better but I still think it'll be another week at least before we're fully in the swing.. It can't come soon enough! :)

The Draft...already?

THIS is the face of one happy boy. Yesterday he was drafted to play with a football team - complete with full gear - helmet, pads, pants...and cup ;) The shoulder pads have hardly come off, but thank goodness I got the rest of it away from him! And YES - I said drafted! Believe it or not for our football program, the kids go through a draft so that everyone has a chance to pick from certain age brackets/sizes/weights, etc. Its a way to make it fair for all teams, but it felt really odd to hear his name called and that he had been drafted for such and such team.
Anyhow. This boy is very, very happy. That is until tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the first day of school.
Well, bud - you can't have it all.

Horse Country & A Funny

On any message board I frequent, I list my location as "beautiful horse country of Kentucky". But I have to admit I take for granted the beautiful area in which I live way too often. So tonight as we were taking a leisurely drive, I made Hoyte stop at practically every farm we passed (and we passed ALOT) to take some photos of the horses in the fields.
I was fortunate to get some wonderful photos as the horses were actually close to the fence this evening. They are amazing animals. I particularly loved this little guy. He was fascinated with the human taking his photo. He just had to trot over and see what was up. His mama on the other hand wasn't so sure about it all and tried to nudge him along. I love summers in Kentucky. This is us at our best. Ok, second best - the first is Derby Time!








And overheard from the backseat of the car as we were on same said drive:
Ethan: "Mama, can we ride our bikes when we get home? Just in the driveway?"
Me: "Maybe, E. We'll see what time we get home first, ok?"
Ethan: "Ok."

five minutes pass

Ethan: "Daddy? Can we ride our bikes when we get home? Just in the driveway? Mama said we could."
Me: "Ethan, I did not say that. I said 'Maybe'. Do you know what 'maybe' means?"
brief pause
Ethan: "Yeah. It means 'no.'"

Um, yeah...sadly this time he was right! ;)

Too close of a call

So I admit I'm not the best at keeping up with this blog, but I do so love reading *other* people's blogs. One of my faves is of my cutie Mrs. Kayla Aimee. She has such a great writing style and a quick wit that has me laughing almost every time I visit it. But last night was different. Last night, I saw a link on her blog to the talented Jody Ferlaak and I followed it. Let me preface this by saying that I am familiar with Jody's work though I don't know her personally. I had heard snippets of her story on layouts or through message board posts. And yet, I still had no idea of the breadth of her story and how much it would touch me.

You see yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Jody's daughter Teagan in a tragic accident. I got caught up in the story last night - reliving the horror with Jody and then getting inspired by her hope for the future and the way she chooses to live her life positively - for herself, her husband and her children. The minute I was done reading, I practically ran up the stairs to my own children's rooms and hugged them a bit tighter and kissed them a bit more in their sleep. I told them again how much each one of them meant to me and how much I loved them because Jody reminded me just how life can change in one brief instant. It was like she spoke directly to me and I wanted to make sure I was listening.

After I went to bed, I was lying there next to my husband and I tried to tell him about the Ferlaak's and the loss of Teagan (who incidentally was about the same age as my youngest when she died). He couldn't quite get it but I kept saying, "You just never know. You just never know."

I didn't realize quite how true that could be. This afternoon with my entire family in the car - all the boys strapped into the back - we headed into the city to run some back 2 school errands. As we almost reached our exit, the car in front of us braked suddenly to avoid hitting the car in front of him who had done the same. We veer off the interstate into the median to avoid them both and as we did, the car in front of us did the same and came sideways at us. We barely missed him at each point and then almost drove into the oncoming lanes. Surely God was looking out for us that not only did we not him anyone but that no one hit us. It completely shook us all up but we were all safe.

Life can change in an instant. I will try to never take that for granted again.

We're Rollin' on the River again

My boys live for our annual trip on the boat with my Uncle. And every year when it's time to go home, they're immediately asking when we're going back! They go 90 mph once they're there - from excursions on the "island" to jumping off the back of the boat to um...flirting with the girls the next boat over. Sigh. So here's our day in picture - including the annual pic (above) I take on top of the boat just for their uncle :)

I just love this photo - one day I will have one of those little boats and spend a carefree life just drifting along. It can happen, right?

And how can a kid be so darn cute and so stinkin' mean all at the same time? And the best part about going out on the boat? Nine hours on the river has my boys are wiped and they finally manage to let Mama and Daddy sleep in too! Ahhh, Heaven! (Not quite as good as the sailboat life, but I'll take it!)

Growing Fast

As another school year fasts approaches (August 6th here!), I'm suddenly too aware of how fast time passes and how big the boys are getting. I had really been noticing it in Turner lately, but after doing an impromptu photoshoot of Ethan for our family wall, it's even more apparent in him. He's lost 2 teeth in the past week and is looking a bit snaggly there in the smile department, but his face is taking on an angular look and his clothing and interests are really changing.

It's 2nd Grade in a couple of weeks and football and turning 8 all coming up fast. If I blink too much, I'm going to miss it all, so I want to write it down while I can.

Friday the 13th...

ended up being pretty lucky for this guy! He finally got his trophy for his very first season of tball and was so proud. Those of you that have 2 boys know just how competitive they can get and so this was a huge deal to Turner as big brother already has 5 trophies! We had such a great time this season and T really seemed to love playing. We've aleady signed up for soccer in the fall for all the boys so we'll see how that goes! Not sure I'm ready to be a soccer mom for three!



Just a funny pic - this is Carson running down the side of one of the soccer fields tonight. I was sitting at the bottom, so looking up, there was a surreal looking horizon - almost like in Teletubbie Land....can't you just picture him meeting up with LaLa in a second??!

And finally - I had to share this portrait of Turner. I took it in celebration of his 5th birthday. I try to do annual portraits of all the boys because they change so fast at this age. When I pulled it off the camera, I was blown away by this sweet expression on his face. There's just something special about this kid :)

Happy Friday the 13th everyone :)

And the WINNER is.....

Congratulations! Email me at kelly.goree@gmail.com so I can get you out some goodies :)

Happy 4th! (Not sure you'll remember me!)

I had all the best intentions, really I did. I've been meaning to post all kinds of updates. The bad thing is the longer I waited, the more things had happened and the more there was to update....so the longer I waited. It was one of those vicious circles, I'm afraid. So I finally had to jump on in and I figured the 4th of July was a good reason (excuse?!) to do that!

A quick recap of the past 2 weeks:
After I returned home, and beyond the jet lag (and yes, to those I promised sharing AUS photos, they will eventually make their appearance here...cross my heart!)...there was Father's Day and Turner's Birthday. And since T's bday was the day after Father's day, we celebrated the same day. We went to a petting zoo, had pizza and, after I got through with it, an upside down cake. It didn't start out that way - it began life as a very cute spiderman cake, complete with web. Of course I have no pics of that to proove it as it soon landed on my mom's wood deck. Thank goodness Turner took it better than I did!

So the actual day of his birthday, we had his t-ball game. All the boys were laying down trying to rest up for it as the games go on pretty late in the evening when we hear this thud and before we can get to the stairs, Ethan is flying down them crying, "Carson is hurt and is bleeding bad!" So not what you want to hear. As Hoyte and I rush to him, we can see the blood pouring from his head. Yep...he decided to take the words literally to "5 little monkeys" and did his darndest to re-inact that song. So Mama called the doctor and the doctor said we had to come in quickly for some stitches. Poor thing.
He looks so sad and pitiful here, but I promise after the whole sewing process was over, he was his normal self and never looked back! (He was even a trooper when we had them out 4 days later!)
After that, things became a whirlwind with the upcoming CHA show and other work-related activities which show little to no signs of slowing, which hopefully somewhat explains my lack of posting.

But yesterday was the annual Preher 4th of July Bash (early this year as it's always held the Saturday before the 4th)...it's the event we look forward to all year. Amy and Scott always put on the most amazing, kid-friendly day. Everyone has a fabulous time - especially the kids! Things don't get started until about 4:00 in the afternoon, but they last until the wee hours. Ok, not so much for us - we're the lightweights who head home at 11:00, but still, it's always an amazing day!

We had food galore, kareoke, water balloons, sack races, volleyball, horseshoes, trampoline, bouncer, pool - you name it, it was there. And then when it got dark, there were the mandatory sparklers and fireworks show.













(Btw, the little redheaded cutie is my friend's daughter, Emma....don't you wish you had that hair??!)I think there were a total of at least 25-30 children, the majority of them my kids' ages. Turner had his best friend from preschool there and Ethan and Carson soon found some buddies to hang with too. They were like a swarm as they went from one activity to another. It was a riot to watch. They didn't want to go home when we finally pulled them away at about 11:00 that night. Already we can't wait for next year.

Happy 4th to all of you. Be safe and try to stay cool :) (P.S. This is my one year blog-iversary! I didn't realize that my first post was the 4th pictures from last year, so I feel a little RAK coming on. Drop me a comment with your name and what you did on the 4th and I'll enter your name to win a little something. Not sure yet what it'll be, but I'll figure that out here shortly! I'll leave this open until Saturday the 7th at midnight EDT and draw for the winner on Sunday!)